This week primary schools in NL have started with the instruction of half groups max half weeks
For Katies school that means that she has school on Mondays and Thursdays with half her classmates, the other half goes on tues and fri (the group is 28 kids, so now its 14 at a time)
the other three days they work at home
They are reasonable with the kids, they are super strict about the parents - no-one is allowed IN school, every group has an area on the playground to gather in the morning, parents are asked if possible to not go on the playground but say goodbye at the gate (it's a request, if children are upset by drop off they can still go with them on the playground) from group 5 (around 9yo) parents are not expected to go into school for drop off anyway - this has always been the rule.
When children enter school they all wash their hands. Normal setup is desks dotted around by the two, still the case but only one of the two is occupied. Children are asked to eat snacks and lunch at their own desk, where they usually mill around all over the place. Older children are asked to keep distance between themselves and others (though not hugely enforced between kids, more enforced between them and adults), younger kids they do what they can but they still care for the kids as usual so I guess that means distance there is out.
For break times there is one line on the playground, two groups have break at the same time and are asked to stay on their side, the next break time they switch sides, because important stuff like climbing frames and sandpit reasons. they are allowed to move over the line to get something from the shed or go back indoors etc, they just try not too mix the groups more then necessary
there are about a thousand hand washing points throughout the day
Plus of course the usual "any symptoms stay home" business
Katie is ecstatic, she was so done with missing all her friends that she doesn't care it's only half, she doesnt care about the rules and weirness she's just happy to see some people
Her dancing group also started this week, outside on the school playground on Wednesday, when there is no-one in school (instead of their own location)
She is not going to after school care for as long as someone is working from home, there is no need and even though she loves it I don't need the extra worry.
So I don't know, Im still worried, I feel like an awful lot at once is allowed suddenly from this week. At the same time they do seem to be doing what they can without resorting to those pictures above.
I use this
website to check the curves so we will see in 2 weeks what the impact is.
As for my job Im super lucky, I can do it well from home and they take everything super seriously so for the last 8 weeks their rules have been work from home unless you are absolutely unmissable and no more then 20% of our workforce is allowed in the building, so they have made schedules. My boss went one day and at the door was asked what his reason for being there was, so pretty good
Now they are looking at increasing to max 40%, but still under the rule if you can work from home at all, you are not in that 40%
So I have been out of the house exactly once since march 12th, and that was to get my broken molar fixed (yay!) and will be right here for the foreseeable future.
Still if it were up to me there would be no school and other stuff for a while yet.